The Broken Body and The
Shed Blood
Healing in the Holy Communion
* This teaching is an Advanced study from The Bible Tells Me So published
by The American Christian Press in 1973
Great numbers of Christians are suffering from lack of strength and physical
wholeness. Their lack of well-being is in most instances due to either wrong
teaching or no teaching at all on the subject of this study. Most Christians are thoroughly familiar with
the meaning of the shed blood but not with the broken body in the communion
ceremony. The broken body aspect of the communion service deserves study and
teaching.
The value of this study in abundant living depends entirely upon what
position you hold regarding the Word of God.
If you believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that it is God's
answer to the needs of man, then you will be able to manifest the results in
your life.
According to Malachi 3: 6, God says, "For I am the Lord, I change not .... " He is the same all
the time. What He was once, He is always. What He did once, He does always. The God
whom I know, whom I teach and preach, and for whom I labor is the same God as
the God of Abraham, David and Paul. God
has not become one bit weaker throughout these years.
The fruitfulness of this study, to a marked degree, depends upon whether
or not you are seeking deliverance from sickness. If you are not seeking complete deliverance
for your life but an excuse for bondage, this study will not be of profit to
you. There are people who believe that
it is God's will for them to be sick.
There are people who believe that God is the author of sickness,
suffering and all manner of evil to mankind.
There are people who believe that God makes them better Christians by
sending sickness and disease. All these
positions are out-and-out contradictions of the Word of God. God does not send sickness, disease and sin
into anyone's life in order to make him a more worthy or holy Christian, nor
does God send sickness and disease to try people.
When the Corinthian church was manifesting sickness, division and
strife, Paul did not applaud them for their sickness. He did not say, "It is a sign of God's
love that you are sick." Nor did Paul say, "Bear your sickness
patiently for God is trying you."
The Apostle Paul, according to the Epistle to
the Corinthians, rebuked them and endeavored to correct them for being
sick. He rebuked them not as individuals
but as a congregation, as Christians, because they did not properly discern
the Lord's body. They did not realize
that Jesus, who was sacrificed on the cross of Calvary, had accomplished
something for them in His body. Paul
pointed out that it was no longer necessary to suffer sickness and disease.
The age of Law was totally different from the age of the Church. Deuteronomy 28: 15-61 tells about the curse
of the law, those things which befell men who were disobedient to the law.
But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his
statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon
thee, and overtake thee. -- Deuteronomy
28: 15
The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning
.... Deuteronomy 28: 22
The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with
the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch,
whereof thou canst not be healed. -- Deuteronomy
28: 27
The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and
astonishment of heart. Deuteronomy 28:
28
The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with
a sore botch that cannot be healed .... Deuteronomy 28: 35
Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt .... Deuteronomy 28: 60
Also every sickness, and every plague ... them will the Lord
bring upon thee ....
Deuteronomy 28: 61
The great portion of this whole section is concerned with sickness and
disease.
The Church, the body of believers, is no longer under the curse of the
law. By the grace of God through Jesus
Christ, we now are able to live the more abundant life.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us: for it is written,
Cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree.
Galatians 3: 13
If we have been redeemed from the curse of the law then we no longer
have the curse upon us. "Christ hath redeemed [past tense]
us from the curse of the law ....
" That means He has
redeemed us, not only from some of the things mentioned in the curse,
but from all of them, which
includes sickness and disease.
If the Church has been redeemed from sickness and disease, why then was
the Corinthian church sickly and weak?
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's
body. For this cause many are weak and
sickly among you, and many sleep. I Corinthians 11:
29, 30
The Corinthian church was well aware of what the blood of Christ meant,
but they were failing to discern the body of the Lord.
It is not stated how many members the Corinthian church had, but the
number in another group from the Old Testament can be documented. Some scholars estimate that two and one half
million people left Egypt, because there were 600,000 men plus their wives and
children. *
* "And the children of Israel
journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that
were men, beside children." --
Exodus 12: 37
... there was not one feeble person among their tribes. Psalm 105: 37
There is always something obviously wrong when members of the Church are
weak and sickly and people are dying prematurely. If God can take two and a half million from
Egypt without one feeble person among them, then what is there He cannot do in
the day in which we live? Will God not
do as much, if not more, in this age of Grace than He did in the time of the
Law? This is a greater day to be alive
than were the days of Moses. **
* * "Be it known unto you
therefore, men and brethren, that
through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by Him all that believe are justified
from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts 13: 38, 39
Jesus Christ arose from the dead, the holy spirit
is in the Christian people with great potential power.
The children of Israel had been in Egypt for four hundred years and had
been terribly mistreated by the Egyptian slave masters.
And it came to pass in process of time,
that the king of Egypt died: and
the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and
their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. --
Exodus 2: 23, 24
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
For 80 years Israel had been waiting for her deliverer to appear.
Come ... and I will send thee [Moses] unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of
Egypt. Exodus 3: 10
And God brought them out under the leadership of a man called
Moses. Moses became God's spokesman; and
in preparation for the freeing of the enslaved Israelites, God instructed the
people through His spokesman.
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying ... they shall take to them every man a lamb .... " kill it in the
evening. And they shall take of the
blood, and strike it
on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the
houses .... And they shall eat the flesh in that night ....
... it is the
Lord's passover.
-- Exodus 12: 3, 6-8, 11
Follow the sections of each Scripture to get the gist of the
context. Its not difficult.
God gave His Word; the results followed those who heard and believed.
God said to Moses that he should tell the people to do two things: (1) take the blood of the lamb and sprinkle
it on the lintel and the side posts of the door and (2) eat the flesh. The
blood and the flesh were equally important, equally significant, so far as the
Word of God and the people of Israel were concerned. It was the Lord's Passover.
I want you to note something else.
When the Lord passed over Egypt and the firstborn of the Egyptians were
slain, God protected the homes of the children of Israel because of the blood
they sprinkled on the lintel and side posts.
Only the blood protected them. The account in Exodus does not mention
anything about seeing a carcass or the flesh of the lamb laying outside the
door. If any Hebrew father had said,
"Oh, that Word of God which Moses is speaking is nonsense; I don't believe
in that kind of stuff. It's foolish to
kill a lamb and sprinkle the blood on our door lintel, and then think the
destroyer will not come. I will not do
it. I refuse to listen to Moses; he
cannot be God's man." If the father
had actually believed this, the eldest son of that family would have died along
with the firstborn of the unbelieving Egyptians.
After affording protection to the children of Israel by the shedding of
blood, what was the purpose of the command, " ...
Eat the flesh ... "? God told them
to eat the flesh of the lamb so that their physical needs would be met. Looking at those Hebrews that night in Egypt,
they did not appear changed on the outside.
But something had happened because the Israelites acted upon God's Word.
Believing is indicated by acting upon what God has promised. The Hebrew people led by Moses demonstrated
believing. God gave them physical
wholeness when they ate the flesh of the lamb, and literally spared their lives
because they followed His directions by sprinkling the blood. Not one second before they ate the lamb did
they receive wholeness. But, that evening when they ate the flesh of
the lamb, whose blood they had sprinkled on the lintel and the door posts, they
ate physical health to themselves. The
destroyer passed over without harming the obedient Israelites, and the next
morning everyone was whole in every way.
These people acted upon the Word of God as it was spoken by Moses. Some of you are saying, "Well if there were
a Moses today, I would believe."
Would you? Whenever there is a
man of God speaking the Word of God, you have the absolute Word. When I am preaching the gospel, I am God's
man with His power in me, and everyone believing the words that I speak gets
results when he acts upon them. This the
Word promises.
Just as the blood of the lamb was the covering for the sins of the
children of Israel, so the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for sin. The body of Christ was offered for the
consequences of sin (that is, sickness, disease and want) just as the eating of
the flesh was the healing for the physical needs of the children of Israel.
... Himself [Jesus] took our infirmities [unwholeness], and bare our sicknesses. Matthew 8: 17
These two things Jesus did for us for He is our Passover.
For even Christ our passover
is sacrified for us. I Corinthians 5: 7
In the record of Exodus 12, Israel was beginning a journey from the land
of Egypt, the land of slavery, to the promised land. In that journey one can find a true
comparison to the journey of every person today. It depicts the journey a Christian may take
from the time of slavery, defeat and frustration to the more abundant life. The only difference is that the children of
Israel looked forward to the time of the cross of Jesus, while we look back to
the accomplishments in the cross of Jesus.
How we have neglected to reach God's people with this truth about Jesus'
bearing our sickness. We have taught
that Jesus bore our sin but have neglected to teach the other half - that He " ... bare our
sicknesses." The Word of
God is clear regarding these two definite parts in the death of Jesus. I am not preaching a new doctrine, I am not
teaching a new gospel; I am teaching the gospel that Peter, Paul and the rest
of the apostles taught and preached which brought deliverance to the
believers. I believe in the complete
work of Jesus Christ, not only for salvation from sin but salvation from
sickness as well. If Peter can say, " ... In the name of Jesus Christ ... rise up and
walk," so can I, so can your pastor, so can you because The Word says
so. We are only limited to the extent
that we limit the Word of God in us. He,
Jesus Christ, bore our sickness and our sin.
The elements of the Passover for Israel are equivalent to Holy Communion
for the Church. The Passover lamb had
two important parts: blood and
flesh. So also, the death of the lamb of God had two elements: blood and flesh, symbolized in Holy Communion
by the cup and the bread.
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion
of the blood of Christ? The bread which
we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? --
I Corinthians 10: 16
I Corinthians 10: 16 has the two elements so clearly depicted; yet for
years I missed the great physical healing power in Holy Communion. I always believed that "the celebration
of the Lord's Supper has ever been regarded by the church as the innermost
sanctuary of the whole Christian worship," as set forth in our Communion
liturgy. But I had not been taught in
the churches or seminaries I attended that the body of Jesus was given: for my physical wholeness, although the Bible
says it is so. Sickness has come upon
the Church even though we partake of both elements because we have failed to
properly discern the Lord's body.
Who [God] forgiveth all thine
iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases. -- Psalms 103: 3
There are two parts: sin and
disease, one is removed by the blood of the lamb and the other by the flesh of
the lamb.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of
our peace was upon him; and with
his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53: 5
This passage prophesies the accomplishments of the promised Messiah, Jesus
Christ. Again, note the two elements:
forgiveness and healing.
Wholeness has two parts: spiritual and physical.
There are seven different names for God depicting His nature in the Old
Testament. One of the seven is Jehovah
Rapha which is Hebrew, meaning, ... I am the Lord
that healeth thee," as given in Exodus 15: 26.
An integral part of the nature of God is physical healing. The Lord, at the time the children of Israel
marched out of Egypt, gave them the promise, "I am the Lord that healeth thee."
He is still the same Lord today.
Satan causes sickness and disease.
God made available salvation and healing.
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were
healed. I Peter 2: 24
While Jesus had walked here upon earth demonstrating the will of God,
the time came for the fulfillment of that which is recorded in II Corinthians.
For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
-- II Corinthians 5:
21
Jesus who was without sin, was made sin for you and for me, "that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. "
When describing the love shown at the crucifixion of Jesus, words
fail. Jesus, the Son of God, without any
sin - who did nothing but good for people, healing their broken bodies and
giving them God's Word - now was to be crucified by them. They beat Him and platted a crown of thorns
to put on His head. They spit in His
face and struck Him. Finally, they led Him up that rugged road to Calvary.
And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the
place of a skull .... * -- John 19: 17
* "And he [Jesus] bearing his
cross" is the phrase from which has been inferred that Jesus bore the wooden cross. This does not agree with the clear record in
the other three Gospels. They plainly
stipulate that Simon of Cyrene bore the wooden cross from the door of the Judgment
Hall.
The cross Jesus bore was composed of everything that was against us.
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his
cross. -- Colossians 2: 14
It was that physical punishment which He went through that bought our
healing. In Isaiah 53: 5 we read, "with [by] his stripes we are healed," and in I Peter 2:
24, "by whose stripes we were healed." Looking forward to the cross, Isaiah said
that "we are healed." Peter
looking back said, "by whose stripes we were
healed [past tense]."
At the end of His earthly life when they were beating Him and scourging
Him, Jesus in His physical body was paying the price for the physical wholeness
of mankind. When He allowed His body to
be beaten and scourged, Jesus was redeeming us from sickness and disease. Not His body, but His blood was spilled at
Calvary for the remission of sin.
For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for
many for the remission of sins. -- Matthew 26: 28
The term "shed blood" is a figure of speech and does not mean
literally "to bleed," but that the life has gone from the blood. Jesus' blood was shed - He died - for the
remission of sin, not for sickness.
Jesus was our complete substitute.
He was our Passover. He was slain
for us. Instead of having to live under
the curse of the law, we now are free from that curse. We now live by grace through believing in the
finished work of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
When you and I believe and know our sonship
rights in Christ, and when we know and believe in the total significance of
Holy Communion, we will no longer tolerate sickness. Sickness and sin lose
their power over us when we properly discern the Lord's body and blood.
The cup in Holy Communion
represents the blood of Jesus Christ; the bread represents the body of
Christ. Since Jesus bore my sin and
sickness on Calvary's cross, then when I come to the Communion in remembrance
of Him and eat of that bread and drink of that cup I have healing and
forgiveness of sins because "his own self bare our sins in his own body on
the tree ... by whose stripes ye were healed."
The Lord Jesus first instituted this new covenant of Holy Communion in
symbolizing His blood and His body.
... That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed
took bread: And when he had given
thanks, he brake it, and said,
Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the
new testament in my blood: this do ye,
as oft as ye drink it, in
remembrance of me. -- I Corinthians 11:
23-25
The Corinthian church was admonished to continue celebrating the Lord's supper. After giving
each element, the Scripture says, "this do in remembrance of
me." It is not just the
"doing," but "doing in remembrance of Christ."
To have remembrance of anyone or anything, we must first have knowledge
concerning that person or thing. We must
know what Christ accomplished by his death before we can have a remembrance of
the results of His suffering and death for us.
Acting upon the promise of God brings the result that God said it would.
The Scripture says, No man who believes in Him - who adheres
to, relies on and trusts in Him - will [ever] be put to shame or be
disappointed. -- Romans 10: 11 (The Amplified New Testament)
Go to the communion table knowing that your sins are forgiven and that
by His stripes you were healed. It does
not depend upon the feeling you may or may not have; it depends upon the
accomplishments of Jesus Christ.
As the bread is served to you, remember that Christ said, "This is
my body which is broken for you."
By believing, receive and thank God for your physical as well as
spiritual wholeness.
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